If the answer is yes, it appears you are in the minority of Australian workplaces.

Only one in four employees in Australian workplaces believe their managers do a good job.

The remaining 75 per cent believe their workplace suffers from poor leadership and needs better management.

And, perhaps unsurprisingly, most of us think we could do a better job: three-quarters of the workforce believes it has the know-how to be a good leader.

The findings are the result of a survey into management by the Centre for Workplace Leadership, a federally funded research centre at Melbourne University to be opened by Employment Minister Eric Abetz on Thursday.

The survey of 2300 workers was carried out by the university's researchers from the first week of February.

It found that, while there were concerns about the quality of management, over half the nation's workforce had a leader in their workplace they could look up to.

The situation was worse, though, in the managerial ranks, with only 35 per cent of bosses in senior or middle management roles saying they had someone to model themselves on at work.

Australia's high level of working hours compared to the rest of the globe was also reflected in the survey, which found employees demonstrated relatively high levels of commitment to their work; 84 per cent said they used their own initiative to carry out tasks not required as part of their job.

Two years ago, by comparison, British workers asked the same question found less than three-quarters of staff willing to take on work that was not part of their role.

Centre for Workplace Leadership director Peter Gahan said it appeared Australian workers ''lack faith in their leaders''.

He said leadership roles in Australian workplaces were often the ''neglected ingredient'' in productivity.

Professor Gahan said it had been established workers who were happier in their jobs were often far more productive.

''Leadership is the often neglected ingredient in productivity,'' he said.

''Employees who have greater job satisfaction and motivation create workplaces that have productivity gains of 30 per cent.''